232018 Academic English – Classroom English (S) (SoSe 2011)

This Basismodul 5 course is specifically aimed at students intending to become teachers at the Grund-, Haupt- or Realschule. Please note that if you are planning to teach Sek. II or are not planning to become a teacher at all, you should attend one of the other Academic English seminars.

One aim is to ensure that you are able to use English, and above all spoken English, with assurance and accuracy in the classroom. To this end, the course will include a variety of tasks and exercises designed to improve pronunciation and fluency and to consolidate control of relevant areas of grammar. You will be asked to record yourself reading various kinds of texts you might use in class, including poems. We will also do extensive work on vocabulary and idiomatic usage appropriate to children and young teenagers. The language you use to introduce materials and supervise tasks is equally important, and we will practise this as well.
Besides this, the course aims to give you practice in adapting authentic materials to your teaching needs, and in deciding what changes or editing might be necessary to make the language input more appropriate. Here, again, the intention is to make sure that any alterations you make are correct and idiomatic.

The other major focus of the course is to introduce essential practical skills for Academic English, including questions of style and citing and documenting sources.
You will be given the opportunity to check your progress under test conditions and there will be a short written assignment in which you will be asked to choose and adapt authentic materials for classroom use, explain the reasons for your choice and elucidate the adaptations you have made.